Achievements
Sins of a Solar Empire has numerous achievements that one can acquire as they play the game. Some of these are fairly simple to pull off, while others may test your strategic resolve and possibly result in keyboard flight. These are the Achievements thus far and their descriptions, plus tips on how to complete them and their difficulty. It seems to be impossible to get most achievements after having already won the game. That is, you must get the achievement BEFORE beating all your opponents. The exceptions from this are, obviously, achievements that require completing a game. Difficulties: *'Variable:' These Achievements pretty much rely on luck - as such, they do not fit into any difficulty category. *'Time Consuming: '''Not really difficult, just require "grinding" or other repetitive activities. *'Laughably Easy:' These Achievements should come naturally during the course of gameplay, and you'll probably get them without even thinking about it. *'Very Easy:' Just a step up from '''Laughably Easy,' these goals might be a little tougher, but still shouldn't pose much trouble for even a novice player. *'Easy:' Though defined as "Easy," these Achievements aren't exactly "gimmes," either. These may be somewhat challenging for a first-time player. *'Medium:' This is where the more challenging Achievements start. Typically, they require a bit of experience and maybe a few attempts for new players. *'Somewhat Hard:' This achievement can be quite challenging for a new player, and should be pursued after you've learned the ropes. *'Hard:' The Hard Achievements will take time and effort to complete. With experience and planning, however, they're not overly difficult. *'Very Hard:' At this stage, the gloves are off. These Achievements often offer little leeway for the player if they're to get them, and it's quite a chore to reach one. Race achievements Ensign Win the game as a TEC player. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy - Easy' *'How To:' Not much to say here. Just win the game as a TEC player. Acolyte Win the game as an Advent player. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy - Easy' *'How To:' Again, not much to it. Just win the game as an Advent player. Initiate Win the game as a Vasari player. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy - Easy' *'How To:' Once again, just win the game as a Vasari player. Master Of Any Domain Win the game as a Random player. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy - Easy' *'How To:' Beating the game as a random player - in theory - gives you no control over which race you will get. However, you can just quit and restart until you get the race you want... AI achievements The easiest way to complete all the following achievements is to simply play the game against 4 Easy-level AIs and when you're about to win, save and quit then load the game but change the difficulties of the Easy-level AIs to Hard-level AIs. Plug Puller Win the game by yourself against at least one Hard AI player. Note: You will FAIL this achievement if you sign a peace treaty with another player! *'Difficulty: Somewhat Hard' *'How To:' A Hard AI receives additional resources and builds bigger fleets (in other words: it cheats). However, he's otherwise no more intelligent than the normal difficulty AI. If you can establish a larger empire or corner him behind a choke point, you can usually overcome his cheating advantage. Once you do that, it's all over but the crying. *Or play the a match on easy and when you are at the enemy's home with a massive fleet save it, go to the menu, load it, and pick the hard. Toaster Roaster Win the game by yourself against at least two Hard AI players. Note: You will FAIL this achievement if you sign a peace treaty with another player! *'Difficulty: Hard' *'How To:' One Hard AI is trouble enough - two will make things interesting. The AI's do not need to be allied, so you can set the map up so they fight and distract each other. Be careful, though, they might level up each other's capital ships. Comp Stomper Win the game by yourself against at least three Hard AI players. Note: You will FAIL this achievement if you sign a peace treaty with another player! *'Difficulty: Very Hard' *'How To:' Use the same methods as above. Again, make sure they're not on the same team (better yet, LOCK teams), and hopefully by the time you reach them, they're so weak that your fleet can easily destroy them. Actually HAL, I CAN Do That Win the game by yourself against at least four Hard AI players. Note: You will FAIL this achievement if you sign a peace treaty with another player! *'Difficulty: Very Hard' *'How To:' This is the most difficult of achievements, but if you can manage three AI's, it's actually not a very big step to four. Try pinning yourself in a system that has only one way in or out to ensure it's easily defended. Or, you can use the methods as previously described. However, they may wise up and jump you when you're not looking. **Also, try putting all the AIs in a system with say, 50-99 pirate bases, and you in a system with lots of asteroid belts. In short, be ready to cheat. **AI doesn't react well against culture spreading. Get to the central planet of the galaxy, fully fortify the planet with tactical structures (and a starbase in Entrenchment) arm the fleet with only combat units (i.e. no siege or anti-structure) then build as many culture-spreading structures as possible. After a short period all AIs will be significantly weakened. **A map with 5 stars (1 per player, doable from the map designer) may make this easier. The separation causes the enemy to have to get multiple labs and a level 2/3 tech to reach you. You then post 2 fleets - 1 defending your home star and 1 attacking enemy planets. Incoming attackers will ignore your defenders at the star and try to assault your nearest planet, allowing a period of largely unanswered strikes. You will (usually) need to chase after them when they jump to their target, but by then they should be much easier to deal with. **The TEC's insurgency power tends to give the AI, even on hard, fits. It will lose planets to rebels that it really shouldn't, etc. **Alternatively, select a 4v4 scenario ('The Art of War' Rebellion large map works fine). The peace treaty limitation will not apply, as your alliance is pre-defined when you start. Simply defeat four enemies with your alliance and then finish the game by taking out the remaining factions one by one. **Build a map with two stars have one star system for 4 players and another for one player. Play the game as a FFA and the AI will weaken each other, by the time you build a decent fleet there will likely be only 2 AI left in contention. Colonize your system, then have fleets backed by starbases at both stars to stop enemy sneak attacks while you destroy what's left of the surviving AI. ** Try a barebones map with 1 star, 5 players and no planetary groups and just blitz from the very beginning. even the hardest difficulty takes some time setting up in the beginning and you can take large advantage of this. Ship achievements All of the following Ship achievements can be obtained at once with the help of another human player. Simply start a multiplayer game, with quick start mode turned off, and have your friend surrender immediately. Fear Of Icebergs Win the game without building any Capital Ships. *'Difficulty: Somewhat Hard' *'How To:' Seeing as your first capital ship is free, you're effectively down 3000 credits over the opponent. Ouch! However, you can set the enemy AI to "easy" difficulty and take your time, you can whittle it down. Large swarms of long range frigates work well here. **Point Blank can be won in under 20 minutes with a Scout/Light Frigate rush to take out the enemy's Constructors and Frigate Factory. Research the siege frigate, and no capital ship is needed for victory. This also gets you "No Exhaust Port Found" and "Best Defense is a Good Offense", below. **Note that Titans do not count as capital ships for this achievement. Point Blank can be won with a single Titan and a cultural assault. This also nets you "No Exhaust Port Found" and "Go Big or Go Home" No Exhaust Port Found Win the game without building any strike craft. *'Difficulty: Medium' *'How To:' Since you can't use fighters or bombers, you'll need to rely heavily on frigate power. Pick a small map where you can strike fast and early before your enemy can build up significant numbers of fighters or bombers of their own (point blank works well) and overwhelm them with massive numbers of frigates. Like "Fear of Icebergs", you can play against the easy difficulty AI, and it is fairly easy to overwhelm with sheer numbers. Best Defense is a Good Offense Win the game without building any Tactical Structures. *'Difficulty: Laughably-Easy - Easy' *'How To:' Most tactical structures can be substituted with ordinary frigates without issue, and if you pick the right map you might never need defenses in the first place. Remember, you can always set the opponent's difficulty to "easy", making him very easy to outnumber. Point Blank is a great map to pursue this achievement. *Unfortunately your "Good Offence" may not include a Titan, as the Titan Foundry is a tactical structure. Go Big or Go Home Win the game without building any Frigates, Cruisers or Corvettes. You will probably need Capital Ships for this! (Not achievable with Quick Start.) *'Difficulty: Medium' *'How To:' No Cruisers or Frigates means you can only have 16 ships at any one time (and even then you probably won't get that many). Granted, they're powerful ships, but Caps alone a fleet does not make! You'll have to get your race's Mothership as the first or second Capital - otherwise, you won't be able to colonize anything! Pick a smaller map where your enemy won't have the time to build up considerable numbers, and remember you can always build static defenses. If you have Entrenchment remember to turn off quick-start, since you will automatically begin with a pair of scouts, disqualifying you from this achievement. Again, you can play against an easy AI here. Since your capital ships will be taking all the punishment, a few repair platforms wouldn't hurt. **Or just go for Point Blank, get the asteroid next to the AI's start point and harass him until you feel strong enough to take him on. Shouldn't take much. **Be careful not to use any Capital abilities or Research that can convert or resurrect enemy frigates under your control, this will disqualify you from this achievement. Research achievements For ANY of these Achievements, the best way to play is to quickly attack the enemy and defeat him (but don't kill him off) then pursue the technologies. Remember to turn off the pirates. Make periodic raids so he never fully recovers. The big concern is balancing your posture so that the AI doesn't give up before you've completed the tech tree in question. The best way to avoid making the AI surrender is to keep your fleet level as low as possible. NOTE: A very simple way to do these achievements is to make 2 star systems. Have them set for 1 player each, then make sure pirates are OFF you can then go around colonising planets on 8x speed and just wait until every research item is finished. You do NOT need to defeat the enemy to get the achievements. *''Entrenchment Note:'' You may NOT research anything in your race's "Defense Tree" when completing any of these tasks. TEC Military Researcher Research every subject in the Military Tree while researching no subjects in the Civilian, Defense or Diplomacy Trees. *'Difficulty: Time Consuming' *'How To:' Pretty straightforward; simply attack quickly and defeat the enemy with pure military muscle. You can use any military technology you want, and on a sufficiently small map tax and extractors alone is all the income you need. The only catch is that you can never colonize ice or volcanic planets, and you can never build broadcast centers to fight enemy culture. Try to pick solar systems without ice or volcanic planets, and ensure you strike quickly enough that culture doesn't become an issue. *'IMPORTANT:' The Forbidden Worlds DLC adds five new research options to each race’s civilian tree, which means that it’s impossible to get the related achievements (Civilian/Harmony/Empire Researcher) without the DLC. Advent Hostility Researcher Research every subject in the Hostility Tree while researching no subjects in the Harmony Tree. *'Difficulty: Time Consuming' *'How To:' Same as TEC military researcher. Vasari Warfare Researcher Research every subject in the Warfare Tree while researching no subjects in the Empire Tree. *'Difficulty: Time Consuming ' *'How To:' Same as TEC military researcher. TEC Civilian Researcher Research every subject in the Civilian Tree while researching no subjects in the Military Tree. *'Difficulty: Time Consuming ' *'How To:' Although you're stuck with the relatively weak light frigate as your only combat unit, you can make up by using capital ships. This is somewhat more difficult than the military researcher achievements, but the basic approach is the same: attack quickly, shut down the enemy, sit back until everything is researched. Advent Harmony Researcher Research every subject in the Harmony Tree while researching no subjects in the Hostility Tree. *'Difficulty: Time Consuming' *'How To:' Same as TEC civilian researcher Vasari Empire Researcher Research every subject in the Empire Tree while researching no subjects in the Warfare Tree. *'Difficulty: Time Consuming' *'How To:' same as TEC civilian researcher Numerical achievements Archaeologist Find and own every artifact at the same time. *'Difficulty: Variable' *'How To:' This, to say the least, requires a big map. Entrenchment adds an extra wrinkle by throwing in 3 more to the original nine. You should construct your own map with a lot of systems to ensure that there's dozens of artifacts - sooner or later, you should get all of them. Ultimately this is a luck-based achievement. TEC Fleet Diversification Have at least one of every TEC Capital Ship built at the same time. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy' *'How To:' Not much to it, really. Once you're late enough in the game, just make sure you have at least one Kol Battleship, Sova Carrier, Akkan Battlecruiser, Dunov Battlecruiser, and Marza Dreadnought built at the same time. Advent Fleet Diversification Have at least one of every Advent Capital Ship built at the same time. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy' *'How To:' Same as above, except make sure you have at least one Radiance Battleship, Halcyon Carrier, Progenitor Mothership, Rapture Battlecruiser, and Revelation Battlecruiser built at the same time. Vasari Fleet Diversification Have at least one of every Vasari Capital Ship built at the same time. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy' *'How To:' Same plan, different ships. Make sure you have at least one Kortul Devastator, Skirantra Carrier, Jarrasul Evacuator, Antorak Marauder, and Vulkoras Desolator built at the same time. Capital Ship Captain Raise one of your capital ships to level 10. *'Difficulty: Very Easy' *'How To:' In any sufficiently long game, one of your capital ships will likely reach level 10. If you use too many capital ships, however, that might slow things down. Capital ships split any earned experience between them, so fewer capital ships will level up faster. Squadron Leader In a single game, own at least 100 squadrons at once. *'Difficulty: Very Easy' *'How To:' It's not so much the issue of getting the 100 squadrons, but rather the issue of getting enough carriers or hangars to support them. If your fleet's large enough, this isn't that hard to do. Building 100 squadrons of bombers is one of the best ways to make an AI fleet simply vaporize... Capital Ship Armada Own the maximum number of Capital Ships possible. Your fleet research must also be at the max level. *'Difficulty: Very Easy' *'How To:' As with most others here, there isn't a whole lot of strategy needed. Just get 16 Capital Ships and you're done. Ship Swarm Own the maximum number of ships your fleet points can support. Your fleet research must also be at the max level. *'Difficulty: Very Easy' *'How To:' It shouldn't be too difficult to fill up that 2000 supply limit (2200 for the Vasari). Just make sure you've got a nice cash flow before you do this, though. Outstanding Resume Complete at least 30 missions. *'Difficulty: Time Consuming' *'How To:' Unless you're playing with a friend, this can be a bit of a chore to do. You have to do it in one sitting, so it might be a good idea to buddy-up with a friend and both of you attack this head-on. Exploration achievements Star Explorer Travel to another star system. *'Difficulty: Easy' *'How To:' Just make sure you have Long-Range Jumping researched. (NOTE: This will forbid you from earning any of the Combat Research Achievements.) Escape From Max Travel through a wormhole to discover where it leads to. *'Difficulty: Easy' *'How To:' Like the one above, but make sure you have Wormhole Usage researched. (NOTE: This will forbid you from earning any of the Combat Research Achievements.) Equal Opportunity Occupy the 10 planet types simultaneously (Forbidden Worlds DLC required). *'Difficulty: Easy' *'How To:' Occupy the following planets at once (plus an Asteroid) : Terran, Greenhouse, Desert, Ice, Volcanic, Ferrous, Oceanic, Dwarf, and Barren. Peacemaker achievements *''QUICK EARN:'' For Road to Peace, Pacifist, Mutual Trader, Planet Visionary, and Ship Visionary, putting a friend or computer on your team will give you these 5 automatically. Spiffy. Money Lender Give 25,000 Credits to other players in a single game. *'Difficulty: Easy' *'How To:' It should happen naturally over the course of a long game with a friend. Metal Lender Give 20,000 Metal to other players in a single game. *'Difficulty: Easy' *'How To:' As with the above, it should come to you naturally during a long game with a friend. Crystal Lender Give 20,000 Crystal to other players. *'Difficulty: Easy' *'How To:' Again, it shouldn't be long before you get this one. Road to Peace Form a Cease Fire with another player. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy' *'How To:' See QUICK EARN at top. Pacifist Form a Peace Treaty with another player. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy' *'How To:' See QUICK EARN at top. Mutual Trader Form a Trade Alliance with another player. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy' *'How To:' See QUICK EARN at top. Planet Visionary Form a Planet Vision alliance with another player. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy' *'How To:' See QUICK EARN at top. Ship Visionary Form a Ship Vision alliance with another player. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy' *'How To:' See QUICK EARN at top. Empire achievements Family Planning Your empire must support at least 6,000 population at once. *'Difficulty: Medium' *'How To:' Set up a map where there's a lot of colonizable planets. Depending on what kinds of planets you have, this will require 30-50 colonized planets. Once your empire is big enough, this isn't a very difficult achievement, but getting an empire that big is no small feat. Tax Collector Collect 200,000 Credits from taxes. *'Difficulty: Fairly Easy' *'How To:' Once you've got a large-enough empire going, you just need to wait for the money to roll in. It could take a while, though, since 200k is a big number. This can be made easier by building Trade Ports. Export Maven Collect 20,000 Credits from trade ships. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy' *'How To:' A substantial trading route should accomplish this in no time flat. Metal Miner Collect 35,000 Metal from resource extractors. *'Difficulty: Easy' *'How To:' Just build a crap-load of Metal Extractors. You should get it quickly. Crystal Miner Collect 35,000 Crystal from resource extractors. *'Difficulty: Easy' *'How To:' Just build a lot of Crystal Extractors. You'll get this achievement sooner or later. Refining Magnate Collect 20,000 Metal or Crystal from refinery ships. *'Difficulty: Easy' *'How To:' Since Advent does not have a refinery, you cannot complete this achievement as them. Like the above achievements, this is just a matter of building enough refineries and waiting for the cash to come in. Remember that refineries only stack three times, so you can't simply put a whole bunch of them in one gravity well. Pop Idol In a single game, have a cultural influence of 75% or greater. *'Difficulty: Medium' *'How To:' 75% influence is actually harder than it sounds, since you must also cover uncolonizable gravity wells. If you control 75% of all planets, however, this is really just a matter of putting up the buildings and waiting for it to fill out (and hope the AI doesn't surrender in the meantime). **'NOTE:' Until Patch 1.03 was implemented, this Achievement was actually impossible to get due to an unintended halving of culture in the game. It was fixed in the patch. *Easiest way that I found was to use the tiniest map, expand quickly before the AI to block them in, then wait till I had researched the Culture-producing buildings needed. The most difficult part was ensuring the AI didn't ragequit before I had the achievement. *Alternatively, go Advent and build 8 Deliverance Engines and set them to autocast. Combat achievements Expert Bombadier Do 15,750 damage to planets. *'Difficulty: Very Easy' *'How To:' Three full-health Planets (or Pirate Bases) will fulfill this achievement. Alternatively, 6 full-health Asteroids (dead or not) will also accomplish this. In any sufficiently large map, you will do this much damage in your sleep. Frigate Killer In a single game, destroy 1,000 enemy Frigates/Cruisers. *'Difficulty: Time Consuming' *'How To:' Depending on the size of the map (and the fleets), you may fight so many cruisers that you get this without even thinking about it, or it may take a stupefyingly long time. It's not really difficult, it's just a matter of having one game that drags out long enough for this to happen. Capital Ship Assassin In a single game, destroy 30 enemy Capital Ships. *'Difficulty: Time Consuming' *'How To:' Pretty much only feasible on larger maps (or if the AI builds a LOT of Capital Ships), this is somewhat similar to frigate killer in that it will happen if the game goes on long enough. Try to build a large force of bombers or long range frigates, and then use them to focus on the capital ships. If you have enough of these units, you can reliably kill the capital ships before they can retreat. Wrecking Crew In a single game, destroy 200 enemy planet structures. *'Difficulty: Time Consuming' *'How To:' Same as frigate killer, except for structures. Pilot's Bane In a single game, destroy 2,500 enemy strike craft. *'Difficulty: Time Consuming' *'How To:' Similar to Frigate Killer, except for strike craft. *'Tip:' If you take the TEC against an Advent AI, this gets a little easier - a pair of Kols with Flak Burst can obliterate any strike craft in range in a single pass, leaving the flak ships to catch the stragglers; and the Advent AI player likes to field properly massive fighter swarms if it gets big enough - bonus points being that Advent have more fighters per squad than any other race. Will still take an age, though. Pirate Exterminator In a single game, destroy 1,000 pirate ships. *'Difficulty: Time Consuming' *'How To:' Pirates are much more difficult in the Diplomacy expansion pack, and this achievements gets accordingly more difficult. In the original game as well as Entrenchment, however, pirates are exceedingly weak and not a serious threat to your fleet. However, each raid consists of only a few dozen units, so you have to be subject to over 30 raids before you get this achievement. At one raid every 15 minutes, that means you'll be at this for nearly eight hours... it's much easier to make a custom map that's filled to the brim with pirate bases and clear them one at a time. If you have about 50 squads of bombers, they aren't a serious threat (though with Diplomacy, they are). Anti-Globalization In a single game, destroy 100 trade ships. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy-Medium' *'How To:' This depends on how many trade ports are built. It also depends on how determined you are to wage economic warfare. On the plus side, they can't fight back... unless an Advent likes Karmic Retribution. Dead Canaries Destroy 50 refinery ships. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy-Medium' *'How To:' Same as above, but with refinery ships. Union Buster Destroy 50 construction ships. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy-Medium' *'How To:' You'll have to DELIBERATELY target constructor ships for this achievement - getting the big 5-0 is harder than it sounds. Miscellaneous achievements Pirate Baron Take over a Pirate Stronghold. *'Difficulty: Easy-Hard' *'How To:' Depending on the size of the fleet stationed there (as well as your own), you may sweep the Pirates without a fight, or be forced to make several mosquito strikes. Either way, once you colonize the base, the Achievement's yours. If there are multiple pirate strongholds on your map you have to colonize them all to get this achievement. Space Ponies!!! Um...what? *'Difficulty: Variable' *'How To:' This achievement is pure happenstance. It requires a WHOLE lotta luck to find the planet bonus you need. And yes, "Space Ponies" is a planetary bonus/penalty without any effect. Can be found repeatedly. Colonizer Have 30 planets colonized at the same time. *'Difficulty: Fairly Easy' *'How To:' Get a map with 30 colonizable planets, and colonize 'em. Just make sure you can hold on to 'em! This is effectively a prerequisite for the "Family Planning" achievement, since you'll almost certainly need more than 30 planets to achieve 6000 population unless the map is just littered with terrans. Metal Speculator Buy 10,000 Metal from the Black Market. *'Difficulty: Very Easy' *'How To:' Especially during the late game, when you've got tons of cash, getting 10,000 from the Black Market should be a simple task. Metal Merchant Sell 10,000 Metal directly to the Black Market. *'Difficulty: Easy' *'How To:' Usually in the late game, credits from trade become so common that your metal and crystal income are puny by comparison, so it's very hard to legitimately achieve this achievement. Essentially, the way to do this is to buy 10000 metal (and get the metal speculator achievement) and then sell it for this achievement. So it's effectively the "Throw away 25000 Credits" achievement, which actually isn't that hard if you build enough trade ports. Crystal Speculator Buy 10,000 Crystal from the Black Market. *'Difficulty: Very Easy' *'How To:' See Metal Speculator. Crystal Merchant Sell 10,000 Crystal directly to the Black Market. *'Difficulty: Easy' *'How To:' See Metal Merchant Resource Opportunist Gain 15,000 Credits from other players buying up your resources. *'Difficulty: Variable' *'How To:' You'll have to rely on luck for this one, as there's no guarantee they'll grab the resources you'll put up. He's No Good To Me Dead In a single game, raise an opponent's bounty by 65,000. *'Difficulty: Easy' *'How To:' By the time your income is steadily coming in (ideally when all you need it for is planets and ships), all you need to do is increase bounty to 65,000. That's it. The TEC are a suitable race to use. World Builder Create your own custom galaxy and preview the results. *'Difficulty: Laughably Easy' *'How To:' It doesn't matter how big, small, detailed, or scrappy the map is - once you make one, save it, preview it, and the Achievement's yours. Trivia *The No Exhaust Port Found achievement is a reference to the 1977 film ''Star Wars''. In the film a massive battle station called the Death Star is destroyed by X-wing starfighters by exploiting a flaw - an exhaust port that leads directly to the main reactor - in its design. Category:Achievements